Two pictures are placed before our eyes. The first is Jesus wearing the crown of disgrace. Voluntarily He chose to be the most despised and unworthy One among men. People hid their faces from Him, and "we esteemed Him not". Jesus! He is the One who deserves all honour in heaven and on earth, but He sacrificed Himself out of love for us and let Himself be disgraced.
In the other picture are we men, more or less wearing sparkling crowns of our own desire for attention and respect. We are much addicted to this desire. No matter what the price is we want to be the centre of attention. We make every effort to attain this goal and all other goals become secondary. The flagrant contrast between these two pictures shows us clearly how serious this sin is. It shows that our desire for attention flatly contradicts our divine calling to be remade in the image of Jesus.
The roots of this sin lie in Adam's fall. Through the fall everything lost its proper relationship. No longer are we primarily interested in being respected by God, being at one with Him in love. Instead we have a strong drive, often a passionate yearning, to be respected and esteemed by people. If we sense that people whom we respect and whose opinion is important to us, do not respect us, we become sad, depressed, unhappy and touchy.
But that is not all. In our desire for recognition we often seek to get into the limelight and pretend to be something we are not, or to have abilities we do not possess. So we become untruthful and, without realizing it, hypocritical. We think we are serving God, but in reality we are doing everything for our own honour, so that others will respect us, and thus we sin against the most sacred things. Then the "Woe" that Jesus said to the Pharisees also applies to us. "They do all their deeds to be seen by men . . . they love the place of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places" (Matt. 23: 5-7)
These hypocrites, to whom Jesus said "Woe", are threatened by Jesus' greatest judgement in eternity. That is why we cannot tolerate the desire for recognition and attention any longer. And this desire gives rise to so many other sins.
We hurt others, we are unloving and place them in the shadow, so that we can appear in a favourable light. Especially in our times, when it will cost us increasingly more and more dishonour, ridicule and disgrace to belong to Jesus and follow Him, our desire for recognition can be our downfall and can even cause us to deny Jesus. Yes, if this addiction to receiving honour from people is so strong in us, Jesus must lament over us-as He did over the Pharisees who did not accept Him, "How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" (John 5:44). So this sin of desire for recognition which is usually anchored in our personalities, separates us from Jesus and the divine life. That is why we have to get rid of it no matter what the price may be. What can help us?
First of all, we have to let the Spirit of God show us again and again how despicable our desire for recognition is, and then make a definite renunciation: "Lord, I do not want to be anything; I do not want to be respected." And then we will find that there is power in this resolute renunciation. Jesus accepts it. He, the Son of God, surrendered Himself to being despised and rejected by all. Now He can help us. What is His is ours. He has gained this humility, this desire to be nothing. Then we will receive the greatest gift. We will be respected by God. The Father said that He was well-pleased with His Son when He went down into the River Jordan and let others think that He was a sinner, not worthy of respect. This "going down" brought Jesus special love from the Father and gave Him the greatest joy.
Jesus forsook his glory and chose disgrace so that we could be redeemed from our desire for recognition and be changed into His image for humility. His lowliness, even to the point of dying like a "criminal" on the cross, is a sure guarantee of His aid for all of us who want to be free from our desire for attention.
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Copyrighted material. Taken from YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME by M Basilea Schlink and used by permission. Further information at: www.kanaan.org
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Basilea Schlink (1904 – 2001)
She was used of the Lord to help found the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. The Lord has used her writings powerfully to help encourage the greater body of Christ of future sufferings for the Lord and how to endure them. Also one of the burdens of her ministry was to share in the sufferings of the Lord and share the sorrow that Jesus has for a lost world and a backslidden church."In heaven we will say, ‘Do you remember the time we celebrated a festival of heaven on earth with Mother Basilea?'" - Corrie ten Boom. "To visit one of the Kanaan sanctuaries that they have assembled around the world is to visit a taste of the kingdom on earth." - Greg Gordon
Recommends these books by Basilea Schlink:
My All for Him: Fall in Love With Jesus All over Again by Basilea Schlink
You Will Never Be the Same by Basilea Schlink
Ruled by the Spirit by Basilea Schlink
Basilea Schlink, born Klara Schlink was a German religious leader and writer. She was leader of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, which she cofounded, from 1947 to 2001.
Some years later Schlink was living in a badly bombed Germany with few resources, but it was important for her to repent for Germany's cruel treatment of other nations during the war, especially the Jews. She felt the temptation to marry like other young women did. Instead she gave her mission the first priority, and so she became a Sister of Mary.
On March 30, 1947, she and Erika Madauss founded The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt. In 1948 both the founders and the first seven sisters became nuns. From then on, Dr. Klara Schlink called herself Mutter Basilea and Erika Madaus called herself Mutter Martyria. Today, The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary has 11 subdivisons all over the world, with in total 209 sisters, and about 130 of these are situated in Darmstadt.
Klara Schlink, religious leader and writer: born Darmstadt, Germany 21 October 1904; leader, Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary 1947-2001, taking the name Mother Basilea; died Darmstadt 21 March 2001.
Basiliea Schlink was the co-founder and spiritual leader for half a century of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, a community dedicated to a Christian literature and radio ministry. She was herself a prolific writer, her devotional books, pamphlets and hymns being translated into more than 60 languages.
The Sisterhood of Mary, initially Lutheran but now interdenominational, numbers more than 200 women from 20 countries, with 14 men in the affiliated Canaan Franciscan Brothers. It has branched out from its centre in Germany, at Darmstadt near Frankfurt, to Australia, Israel and the United States, and has one community at Radlett in Hertfordshire. The Sisterhood publishes tracts in 90 languages and distributes them on all five continents, while its radio and television programmes are broadcast in 23 languages.
Perhaps Mother Basilea's most noted contribution to religious life was her work for reconciliation between Germans and Jews. As a young woman she had learnt with horror of the Nazi extermination of the Jewish communities of her homeland and much of Europe, and dedicated her life to seeking forgiveness and overcoming the legacy of this mutual bitterness.
As national president of the Women's Division of the German Student Christian Movement from 1933 to 1935, Schlink refused to comply with Nazi edicts barring Jewish Christians from meetings.
It was not until March 1947 that Schlink and Madauss were eventually able to fulfil their vision of establishing the Sisterhood.